“Noah” has received a great deal of criticism but it certainly paid off, raking in $43.7 million at the domestic box office. The biblical movie garnered an additional $95 million overseas, taking a total estimated cume of $138.7 million. The Russell Crow starrer was made on a hefty budget of $130 million, with an expected forecast of $30-million on its weekend opening.

As Travers from Rollingstone.com notes:

“…the director of Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream is not doing an exact recreation of the story from the Book of Genesis, which tells us essentially that God wanted to destroy the Earth to punish the wicked and that he instructed to Noah to build an ark and take two animals of every kind with him. There’s nothing in the Bible, however, about what Noah was thinking during this tumultuous time – which is where Aronofsky steps in.”

"Noah"

“Noah”

The Gospel According to helmer Darren Aronofsky:

“The film stars Russell Crowe as Noah and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, reuniting the two stars of A Beautiful Mind (though they also appeared together in Winter’s Tale, which was so miserable Travers declines to acknowledge it); the movie also features Anthony Hopkins as Noah’s father, and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson as an orphan who falls in love with one of Noah’s sons. Noah tracks the titular character’s struggle to build his ship and stave off the angry hordes seeking shelter, and also includes a subplot in which a barren Watson is made fertile by Hopkins.”

Travers says:

“This is not in any kind of scripture,”

“This is somebody saying ,’What if any of this happened?’ Did this bother me? It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Last week’s top contender “Divergent”, slips down to second place this week with an estimated $25.6 million. The family-oriented “Muppets Most Wanted” slides into third place on its second week. The film supported by Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, and Ty Burrell garnered an estimated $11.2 million. The top five is rounded up with “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” and “God’s Not Dead”, taking an estimated $9.0 million and $8.7 million respectively.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hyper violent “Sabotage” tanked at the box office on its debut weekend, taking only $5.2 million in seventh place on a reported budget of $35 million to produce.

Quick look at the top-grossing pictures in North American theaters, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

  1. “Noah” – $43.7 million
  2. “Divergent” – $25.6 million
  3. “Muppets Most Wanted” – $11.2 million
  4. “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” – $9.0 million
  5. “God’s Not Dead” – $8.7 million
  6. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” – $8.5 million
  7. “Sabotage” – $5.2 million
  8. “Need for Speed” – $4.2 million
  9. “300: Rise of an Empire” – $4.2 million
  10. “Non-Stop” – $4.0 million